City of Portland to Sue Monsanto for Contaminating Waterways

PORTLAND, Ore. — The city of Portland unanimously passed a resolution authorizing City Attorney Tracy Reeve to sue the Monsanto Company for contaminating Portland waterways with PCBs.

PCBs are cancer causing chemicals that last for many decades in the environment.

Reeve says the city has already spent a significant amount of public money to clean up the PCB contamination in the Willamette River and Columbia Slough and will continue to do so. It has known for years of the contamination.

“In our case there are PCBs widely distributed throughout Portland Harbor and that’s one of the main reasons it was listed as a superfund site back in December of 2000,” said Travis Williams, executive director of Willamette Riverkeeper.

According to the city attorney, Monsanto was the sole U.S. manufacturer of PCBs and manufactured over 1 billion pounds of PCBs between the 1930s and the 1970s, when Congress banned PCBs. Reeve…